Meet Cindy Wade
Artist, photographer, playwright, educator and dumpster diva, I grew up in a rural part of Vermont during the 1960's and 1970's with nine brothers and sisters. I attended a two-room schoolhouse during my elementary years then went on to junior and senior high in the next town where the class roster consisted of twenty-five students.
High school was a snap. Academics were less than challenging so I found myself on the honor roll several times, even making high honors once. My senior year I was president of FHA (Future Homemakers of America), captain of the varsity cheer leading squad and vice-president of the regional student council and I was still expelled 5 times, mostly for arguing with the principal. Mind you we had 5 different principals during my 6 years at this junior and senior high.
After high school graduation in 1972 I enlisted in the U.S. Army where I received basic training at Ft. McClellan, Alabama (graduated at the top of my class!) and medical training at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. While in the service I worked in military hospitals where I tended to sick and injured servicemen, and in pediatrics, caring for dependent children. In all I spent ten years in the active Army, Reserves and National Guard.
After my stint in the Army I attended college (dean's list) on the GI Bill where I majored in art and theater. I graduated from Castleton State College in 1981 and hold a BA in Art. I first became interested in homeschooling when I directed a small children's theater here in Vermont. I noticed some children in the acting company were more consistently focused, relaxed and mature than others. When I inquired as to why I found they were being home schooled. This discovery began a thirty-four year quest to learn as much as possible about home education and its benefits.
In 1983 I married my husband, Todd, of Houston, Texas. Our daughter was born in 1986 while I was still director of the children's theater company.
I continued a career in the theater into the early 1990's as a self-taught Executive/Artistic Director for a professional theater company while still maintaining an interest in developing a service to assist parents and individuals who wanted to home school their children or simply learn more about it. This interest led to Gnarly Birch Press, a mail order business for home education books, booklets, and a nationally distributed, quarterly newsletter--Right At Home--and the sponsoring of workshops for networking.
While working with the professional theater company I discovered many students graduating from prestigious colleges and universities lacked simple and necessary skills (for example: young people with degrees who didn't know how to use the yellow pages in the telephone book) needed to function in life. I witnessed, first hand, the detrimental effects of mandatory attendance at government operated public schools by observing the irresponsible, anti-social behavior of those who had been schooled. This behavior is carried over to the campus environment and then into the work place.
I am now an advocate for home education and have published three booklets of my own on the subject. From time to time I will be posting excerpts from those booklets here on this blog.
Presently, I reside in central Vermont with my husband and continue my art career. Our homeschooled daughter is now 33 years old, attended community college part-time (she began taking college classes at age 15), worked part-time at a department store, plays classical piano, is a former certified fire-fighter, has her own eBay business, and creates one-of-a-kind creations for her own business called Flutternut Studios. She attended pre-school for only four days and dropped out. She jokingly refers to herself as a preschool dropout. She's now a stay-at-home mom and along with her husband, homeschool their three children.
Our son, born in 1991, began college classes at the local community college at the age of 16, plays jazz piano, worked part-time for my business and loved robotics, computers and traveling when he was younger. He never attended any school until the age of 16 when he chose to take two classes at a local technical school. He now works as a front end web developer for a prestigious college, still loves learning and is a joy to be with.
One of the fastest growing movements in American history is the act of homeschooling. Weary parents are finally choosing to rescue their children from the torments of public school. I believe America is in an all out battle for the souls of the children who live within its boundaries and I intend to arm parents with the information they need to save those children from the detrimental effects of forced public schooling. Guerrilla Homeschooling is my voice.
No longer with any theater group or raising children, I devote my time to my family, my art at Angel Ridge Art, my antique business and the task at hand of getting the word out about the advantages and joys of home-based education. I am available for speaking engagements and can be contacted via email at cwade@vermontel.net.
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